That's not "news"

[Pat Germain]

Jon Stewart is heir apparent to Walter Cronkite's legacy?

I admit I never watched Cronkite when he was on TV. But he just read the news, right? I don't understand all the hoopla around the guy.

[Belinda Barfield]

Big news here yesterday, 3 meth labs discovered in a neighboring county which led to three arrests.

People have the attention span of goldfish.

Apparently so and this has led to my peeve . . . shows that recap after every commercial. Discovery channel, TLC, etc. drive me bananas with that. A one hour show contains approximately 20 miinutes of actual information with everything else being commercials and recaps for those who just tuned in to watch.

[Bryan Morgan]

Apparently so and this has led to my peeve . . . shows that recap after every commercial. Discovery channel, TLC, etc. drive me bananas with that. A one hour show contains approximately 20 miinutes of actual information with everything else being commercials and recaps for those who just tuned in to watch.

I think thats because despite all the doom and gloom we think we hear, we actually have it pretty good. Whats to talk about? If it ain't bleedin', it ain't leadin'!

[Dennis Peacock]

How about disconnecting that TV from the cable or satellite receiver and start spending time with family...playing games, taking walks, eating dinner together and talking over life issues. Sitting on the front porch with a cup of coffee and 3 of your family members. And the list goes on.

IMHO, too many people have dumped "family" for entertainment and the blasted tv set that eats most everyone's time.

My kids are happier since we don't have tv and we all are much better off because we don't have the media influencing us to be something we are not.

Just my 2¢ worth.

[Pat Germain]

^^ I'd say that's a very valuable two cents, Dennis.

While I didn't pull television completely from my house, when my kids were young, we had exactly one, small television connected to an antennae on the roof. This was in the 90s when it was almost unheard of not to have cable. And almost all my kids' friends had a TV with cable in their bedrooms. We had one VHS player and only family-friendly movies were permitted. (I wasn't as strict in that department as you might imagine. When "Saving Private Ryan" was released, I took my son to see it. I felt he was mature enough and I wanted him to appreciate the sacrifices of generations before us. I think the movie succeeded in doing this. I thought my daughter was still too young at the time.)

Of course, my kids sometimes whined about the limited TV options. But, amazingly, they found other things to do. My son was among the best trumpet players in middle school and high school. (Actually, as I recall, he was first chair trumpet in the concert band.) He taught himself to play guitar. He taught himself to write songs. He formed his first band when he was a HS freshman. He graduated college in four years while all his classmates were on the 5-6 year plan.

My daughter read many books far beyond her grade level. She got Stafford loans and finished community college. She recently decided to follow her brother to Seattle and stake out a new life.

Oh, and almost every year they had perfect attendance in school. My daughter still complains about that, but she admits it taught her good work habits.

Meanwhile, most of those kids who had cable TV in their bedrooms are just kinda hanging out. A few mostly sit around and get baked all day. Some take a few classes here and there. They bounce from job to job. I don't blame TV content so much for this situation. But I think those kids became very used to sitting around and being passive all the time from watching a whole of TV. Just my take, of course.

[Stephen Stark]

Think about Lindsay Lohan going back to jail. Stay tuned for even more developments in the story. Yeah, more worthless drivel. It makes you want to get a big stick.

[Mitchell Andrus]

How about disconnecting that TV from the cable or satellite receiver and start spending time with family...

Good points and practiced in our household. My 2 sons are more well-rounded for the lack of TV influence.

AS LONG AS....

your only view of the world isn't limited to what you can see from the front steps. Nature shows, science, balanced world news, etc., are important too.
.

[Michael Weber]

When I watch the news I like BBC America on the BBC cable channel. Less entertainment and more news. Actually no entertainment as far as I can tell except maybe a droll comment by the host(ess).
PBS Newshour is good. Some people consider it liberal but I don't think it is so much as I think the people that say that have shut there minds to anything but right wing radio.

[Dave Ogren]

News it seems is only bad. Very seldom is there anything positive. I guess that would not be news.

Dave

[Bryan Morgan]

How about disconnecting that TV from the cable or satellite receiver and start spending time with family...playing games, taking walks, eating dinner together and talking over life issues. Sitting on the front porch with a cup of coffee and 3 of your family members. And the list goes on.

IMHO, too many people have dumped "family" for entertainment and the blasted tv set that eats most everyone's time.

My kids are happier since we don't have tv and we all are much better off because we don't have the media influencing us to be something we are not.

Just my 2¢ worth.

Amen brother

[John Coloccia]

How about disconnecting that TV from the cable or satellite receiver and start spending time with family...playing games, taking walks, eating dinner together and talking over life issues. Sitting on the front porch with a cup of coffee and 3 of your family members. And the list goes on.

IMHO, too many people have dumped "family" for entertainment and the blasted tv set that eats most everyone's time.

My kids are happier since we don't have tv and we all are much better off because we don't have the media influencing us to be something we are not.

Just my 2¢ worth.

I personally watch zero TV, and haven't in many years, however the same can be said of the internet and bulletin boards like SMC. Just because some people are familiar with TV and talking about it doesn't mean we're all glued to the TV to the exclusion of everything else.

[Joe Chritz]

Rule for dealing with the media....Anything you say will be misquoted and used against you.

I couldn't tell you how many "news" stories I have been involved in that sounded a lot different when they hit the news.

Joe

[Greg Peterson]

If I owned a media outlet (paper, magazine, radio, TV, Web, movies) I can guarantee you that I would follow the proven business models that generate revenue. But on top of that I would also make sure that the content being distributed by my empire did no harm to my other business opportunities.

Face it, news as we experience in all its iterations, serves a less obvious than master. Call me cynical, but I find news in general to be very manipulative.

The brilliance of some outlets is their agenda is so obvious and flagrant that their audience can not tell the difference between an actual 'news' story and a daily talking point memo.

When someone tells me "Hey, I'm just telling you the facts. You form your own opinions of that criminal." or "If it isn't printed in our pages, it isn't fit to print.", they can not, and should not be trusted.

But then again, if you don't like the news being offered by one outlet, there are plenty other outlets to give you the news you want to consume.

[Paul Simmel]

I hope this is read and commented on as it's typed, not tangents that will surely end up in a political statement, so I'll give it a try....

Anyone else driven insane but what news agencies pass off as "news"? I don't mean the typical political stuff, but just what they fill space with.

Yesterday I heard the "breaking news" on the radio at the top of the hour. Apparently it was an apartment fire in progress. Okay, that's news, I get it. However, at the next report, it was stated that the fire was out, it was external, no real damage, no one displaced from their homes. Just a minor fire to the siding.

Next hour, recount of the entire story. Next hour, same thing. For no less than 8 hours, this was the headline story.

To me, it's like saying "Someone ran a stop sign this afternoon, no one was hurt, no accident occurred, nothing bad happened", and then run that all day. I mean is a fire that didn't cause any injury, no one displaced, no real issue, really worthy of having on the news for 8 hours? How many calls do firefighters go on during the day that are bigger stories? Probably a lot. However I don't hear them on the news all day. I hear sirens all the time, but I don't hear them on the news.

Surely there HAS to be bigger local news in everyone's towns than "a kid dropped an ice cream cone today. He got another one, it's all good now", repeated hour after hour after hour.

I dropped MSM years ago. Do yourself a favor and try Fox News and the various other websites (New Media).

[Scott Shepherd]

Paul, it was local news on the radio, no tv's involved. Please, let's not go down the MSNBC, FoxNews, CNN path. That discussion won't end well on a public forum.

This was local news, broadcasting top of the hour updates on the radio.